Posts Tagged ‘Gourmet Gardening’
Growing Perennial Vegetables
Posted by editor on Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Something to think about at this time of year is making a perennial vegetable bed; that means vegetables that will continue to grow year after year. Some examples are asparagus, globe artichokes, Jerusalem artichokes, sea kale, cardoon, chicory and varieties of broccoli, and onion. Check out the internet or nursery/garden centre for crops available as ready grown plants or we like to grow plants from seed – that way you get a better choice and some more unusual varieties.
Globe artichokes – fantastic plants that give great architectural value with their silver, jagged edged leaves, and also give you edible flowers. The artichoke is a really stunning plant – at The Garden House we use it as our logo and sell the seeds too. It is easy to grow from seed, it should then be planted in well-drained soil in the sunniest possible site as they are slightly frost tender. You may need to cover them with fleece during severe weather. It is possible to propagate them now so if you have a friend with an established plant ask them if you could have a cutting. All you need to do is to take a side shoot from the parent plant, use a knife and remove a side shoot far down as possible – preferably with a piece of root attached. Pot up your cutting and water it well and keep it well watered until it has settled down, cut down the leaves if they are really long, to about half to reduce water loss. The variety we like at the Garden House is Violetta de Chioggia - it produces fantastic heads to eat or to just enjoy in the border and is great for bees.
Cardoons – similar to artichokes, but they are grown for their edible leaf stalks not their flower heads. They are the wild parent of the artichoke and were very popular in the Victorian era. Cardoon plants can reach up to 2m (6½ft) and is usually grown as an ornamental. They must be picked when young, before spines develop. They require blanching, like celery, this means gathering all their leaves together and excluding light with black plastic or cardboard in later summer for two or three weeks. The midribs can then be steamed or boiled.
Asparagus – a real favourite and there are many wonderful varieties to try. ‘Gijnlim’ have masses of thin spears and have got a really good flavour, and ‘Violetto d’ Albenga’ is an Italian variety and has lovely purple spears. If you have prepared a bed for your asparagus now is a good time to plant them. Asparagus is expensive to buy in the shops but it is easy to grow and tastes delicious when freshly harvested. Once established, twelve plants will produce an average crop of 10kg (22lb) annually for twelve year or more. Try to buy one-year old crowns as these will establish quicker. Space the plants 38cm (15”) apart in row 1m (3ft) apart.
Chicory – can be treated as a perennial and the bitter leaves can be gathered early or late in the season, after any hearting rosette has been cut. It can grow to about 60cm (2ft).
Jerusalem artichokes – grow to 9ft and make a really good wind break; related to sunflower they are covered in bright yellow flowers. You can make delicious soup or roast their fat, knobbly tubers. To grow, plant the tubers 15cm (6”) deep and 30cm (12”) apart. Draw up the soil around the bottom half of the stems when they are 30cm (12”) tall to give them some support. In mid-summer cut most stems – leave a few so you can enjoy their flowers – back to about 5ft. Prune the plants to leave 8cm (3”) stumps above the ground when the foliage starts to turn yellow later in the year. You can harvest them between autumn and late winter.
Perennial onions – try something a bit different. The tree onion forms clumps of edible bulbs at the ends of the flowering stems that can be used like shallots, They also make offsets around the base of the plants which you can use instead of spring onions. Welsh onions are lovely and look a bit like chives but they can be pulled from the ground to use in salads.
Sea kale – we think that sea kale looks lovely, especially growing in a seaside city. It is an old Victorian vegetable and is hard to get hold of but you can grow it from seed. It appears in late winter when few other fresh vegetables are ready – this is because it is traditionally forced, like cardoon and rhubarb. It is another easy plant to grow from seed (it is illegal to harvest it from the wild).
Many of the perennial vegetables can be found at Delftland Nurseries, organicplants.co.uk or Victoriana Nursery Gardens victoriananursery.co.uk. You could also try the Real Seed Catalogue, realseeds.co.uk if you are looking for some unusual tubers to grow, and of course we have seeds at the Garden House.
Hardy and Half-hardy Annuals – When to Sow
Posted by editor on Sunday, 4 March 2012
Hardy Annuals – are plants with a life cycle of one year that will tolerate the frost and can be sown without heat and will be fine to leave outside, though preferably with some shelter. Examples of these would be Nigella and Cornflowers. You can sow them in September/October or from now until end March. Some, such as sweet peas, are best grown in modules to avoid root disturbance. Most make great cut flowers.
Some vegetables have hardy varieties that are fine to leave outside in the cold weather – I have just picked some salad leaves, mizuna, mibuna, giant red mustard and pak choi that have been growing in the veg plot quite happily, unprotected, during all this cold weather. You can also get hardy broad beans, such as Aqua Dulce Claudia, and onion sets that will be fine outside during the winter.
There are also some lettuce varieties that do well outside. The following all survive in Brighton (if you live somewhere cooler and wetter, try these in pots or window boxes sheltered against your shed or grown in a greenhouse if you have one). Try ‘Green Oak Leaf’ – if you pick it carefully, just harvesting a few outside leaves at a time, you should be able to pick from six to eight weeks from sowing, right through the winter. Then, as spring begins, it really pushes out a ton of leaves from early March until at least the end of April. The same applies to the red-coloured ‘Cocarde’ which being red also keeps off the slugs and snails – for some reason they don’t seem to be attracted to red veg! The American variety, ‘Black Seeded Simpson’, is a surprisingly hardy variety with a lovely texture and taste, and the famously winter-hardy lettuce ‘Valdor’ is soft, rounded, and delicious.
These should keep you in salads through the winter.
Half-hardy Annuals – are plants that will not tolerate the frost and need heat to germinate (around 20ºc). Their life cycle, at least in our climate and like the hardy annuals, is one year from germination to dying. These include veg plants such as tomatoes, chillies, aubergines, peppers, runner beans, courgettes, sweet corn, and many of the brassicas – cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli. There are also many half-hardy flowers, often used in containers or bedding such as Petunias, Impatiens, Lobelia.
With half-hardy annuals the important thing is timing – some plants, for example chillies and Petunias, need a really long growing season and so, if you have a propagator, it is a good idea to sow them now. This will allow plenty of time for them to mature and you will be more likely to get good fruiting and flowering in the summer as they will have had maximum time to receive as much light and heat as possible.
Other plants, such as Cosmos, nasturtiums, sunflowers, sweet corn and courgettes, germinate and grow quickly, as do runner beans so leave these and sow them later on in March or April. They won’t be safe to plant outside until danger of frost has passed, around mid May in this part of the country, and so if you sow them too soon you will have a kitchen full of sprouting runner beans with nowhere to put them! The chillies and aubergines and other slow growing things, that you are sowing now will need to be kept somewhere frost free until mid May to – so bear that in mind and don’t sow too many seeds!
As with so much in the garden, planning is vitally important – be realistic about what you can manage – allowing for a few failures and some to give away.
At the Garden House we have seeds of many of the above for sale, so do contact us if you would like to purchase some.
We also have a workshop on Growing Your Own Cut Flowers on Saturday 21 April so do come along and learn how to make your own cutting garden.
Enjoy a seedy weekend!
Posted by editor on Thursday, 2 February 2012
Seedy Sundays now include Seedy Saturdays too and are attracting more and more people. Primarily the event is about swapping seeds but they have grown and now make for a great family day out with workshops for adults and children and the opportunity to meet people interested in gardening, local food production, climate change and sustainability.
Lewes: Saturday 4 February 10am-3pm at Lewes Town Hall. Free for children, 50p for adults. All day workshops include: making paper plant pots, willow weaving, bug trays, children’s craft and art workshop – and lots more. www.lewes.gov.uk/business/9729.asp
Lewes talks include:
- 10.30 – Brighton Permaculture Trust
- 11am – James Greyson, making a Biochar cooker for soil improver while brewing a cup of tea
- 11.45 – Millennium Seed Bank, Kew at Wakehurst Place – practical talk about seeds
- 12.30 – Peter May, Sussex Apples and Good Fruit Tree Health – bring photos of diseased branches to get accurate advice
Hove: Sunday 5 February 10am – 4.30pm at Hove Town Hall, Norton Road BN3 4AH. Free for children, £2 for adults. Come and enjoy more than 50 stalls, lots of talks, demonstrations and children’s activities as well as the community seed-swap. Bring seeds to swap (in labelled envelopes, please) or make a 50p donation per packet. www.seedysunday.org
Hove talks include:
- 11am – Crop varieties – why do gardens matter? Bob Sherman, Chief Horticultural Officer, Garden Organic
- 11.40 – Seeds of Activism – campaigning for the seeds, agricultural biodiversity and food sovereignty of the world’s majority food providers. Patrick Mulvany, Chair, UK Food Group
- 12.15 – How to dry seeds from your garden and keep them alive. Vanessa Sutcliffe, Training Specialist, Millennium Seed Bank
Baking bread in chilly January…
Posted by editor on Monday, 30 January 2012
While not exactly gourmet gardening, making your own bread touches on many of the things we love about our outdoor spaces – smell, touch, hard work, wonderful results and something you can share with friends and family!
Last Saturday a group of Garden House friends visited the bakery at Brighton’s Real Pâtisserie for a bread-making workshop. Click on Pictures (top navigation bar) and take a look at all the photos of the day! 
We donned our blue hairnets and aprons and under the patient and very informed guidance of head baker Tom enjoyed a unique baking experience, learning about the ingredients and the traditional skills that go into creating wonderful fresh breads for our own family kitchens.
Real Pâtisserie is an independent bakery specialising in traditional French bread and cakes, and renowned for their extensive range of artisan breads – making sourdoughs in the time-honoured way, hand moulding every loaf and creating a range of speciality breads picked from the traditionally popular loaves of France, Spain and Italy.
We made four different bread types - focaccia, traditional French cob, multi-cereal loaf and sour dough – with the opportunity to take some ‘starter’ sour dough home with us.
Hard work, but really satisfying – and in the freezing middle of January, actually rather more fun than gardening!
Planning ahead on the vegetable plot or allotment
Posted by editor on Thursday, 19 January 2012
Plan out your vegetable plot on paper before working out what seed you want to order from the catalogues, so you don’t over order or end up with two much of the same things.
DIARY NOTE: Seedy Sunday takes place on takes place on Sunday 5th February at Hove Town Hall, Norton Road BN3 4AH, 10am – 4.30pm. Entry is just £2, children free. It’s a great opportunity to buy heritage and other seeds, onion sets, and potatoes for chitting.
This is also a good time to think about crop rotation.
Crop Rotation - The principle of crop rotation is to grow specific groups of vegetables on a different part of the allotment each year. This helps to reduce a build-up of pest and disease problems and it organises groups of crops according to their cultivation needs. Pests and diseases tend to be crop specific – for example carrots don’t suffer from potato blight and club root only affects brassicas!
Crop rotation is used in allotment plots and gardens usually for annual vegetable crops. Perennial vegetables, those that come up every year (such as rhubarb, asparagus and artichokes, both globe and Jerusalem) can remain in the same bed.
Some annual crops such as cucurbits (courgettes, pumpkins, squashes, marrows and cucumbers), French and runner beans, salads (endive, lettuce and chicory) and sweetcorn can be grown wherever there is space – this is because they don’t tend to suffer from as many serious pests and diseases as brassicas, roots, legumes and potatoes. Just try to avoid growing them on the same piece of ground year after year.
Different crops have different nutrient requirements - Changing the plot that you grow crops on each year reduces the chance of particular soil deficiencies developing as the balance of nutrients removed from the soil tends to even out over time. For example; legumes have the ability to fix nitrogen from the air into the soil using nitrogen-fixing nodules on their roots, brassicas on the other hand need nitrogen to produce green leafy growth, the part we eat – and so it makes sense to grow brassicas on the plot that was used to grow legumes last year.
Weed control - Some crops, like potatoes and squashes, with dense foliage or large leaves, suppress weeds, thereby reducing maintenance and weed problems in following crops. Onions, on the other hand, are not good at suppressing weeds due to their lack of foliage and so it is a good idea to follow onions on from potatoes.
Why not try the ‘three sisters’ system – a North American idea where you grow squashes on the ground to provide shade and suppress weeds, sweetcorn or sunflowers as a support for pole beans to grow up – this enables you to grow three crops on one plot, in a relatively small space.
Pest and disease control - Soil pests and diseases tend to attack specific plant families over and over again. This can be a real problem for the commercial grower, just because some of the serious diseases such as clubroot can remain in the soil for up to thirty years! If you rotate your crops this means that pests tend to become less of a problem as the spores or eggs of the pest won’t be able to build up when in the soil. White onion rot tends to be a real problem on allotments and crop rotation can help to avoid this.
If you are new to your allotment divide it into sections of equal size (depending on how much of each crop you want to grow), plus an extra section for perennial crops, such as rhubarb and asparagus.
The following groups should be used in the rotation scheme:
Brassicas: Brussels sprouts, cabbages, cauliflowers, kale, kohl-rabi, oriental greens, radish – swedes and turnips are brassicas too, just look at the flowers on them and you can see why many people think they are roots.
Legumes: Peas, broad beans (French and runner beans suffer from fewer soil problems and can be grown wherever there is space).
Onions: Onions, garlic, shallots, leeks.
Potato family: Potato, tomato, (pepper and aubergine suffer from fewer problems and can be grown anywhere in the rotation).
Roots: Beetroot, carrot, celeriac, celery, Florence fennel, parsley, parsnip and all other root crops.
Move each section of the plot a step forward every year so that, for example, brassicas follow legumes, onions and roots, legumes, onions and roots follow potatoes and potatoes follow brassicas.
Here is a traditional three-year rotation plan where potatoes and brassicas are important crops:
Year one
Plot 1: Potatoes
Plot 2: Legumes, onions and roots
Plot 3: Brassicas
Year two
Plot 1: Legumes, onions and roots
Plot 2: Brassicas
Plot 3: Potatoes
Year three
Plot 1: Brassicas
Plot 2: Potatoes
Plot 3: Legumes, onions and roots
If you have the space you can practise a four-year rotation, this is when potatoes and brassicas are not as important, but more legumes (which take up a lot of space) and onion-type crops are required:
Year one
Plot 1: Legumes
Plot 2: Brassicas
Plot 3: Potatoes
Plot 4: Onions and roots
Year two
Plot 1: Brassicas
Plot 2: Potatoes
Plot 3: Onions and roots
Plot 4: Legumes
Year three
Plot 1: Potatoes
Plot 2: Onions and roots
Plot 3: Legumes
Plot 4: Brassicas
Year four
Plot 1: Onions and roots
Plot 2: Legumes
Plot 3: Brassicas
Plot 4: Potatoes
Mistletoe Market at The Garden House
Posted by editor on Sunday, 13 November 2011
MARK THE DATE! Saturday 26 November, 12 – 5pm. Come and buy your Christmas presents while enjoying home-made food, lunches and teas, mulled wine and festive delights as well as carol singing.
- yummy Christmas breads, cakes and preserves
- beautiful plants, bulbs and seeds
- marvelous mosaics
- gorgeous knits
- stunning jewellery
- amazing art
- stylish ceramics
- hand-crafted gifts for the gardener
And a whole lot more besides! Enjoy a wonderful festive afternoon – bring friends and family to The Garden House, 5 Warleigh Road, Brighton BN1 4NT
Now’s the time to forage and preserve!
Posted by editor on Sunday, 18 September 2011
There is so much to be foraged in the hedgerows at the moment, including sloes, crab apples, haws, rowan berries, wild apples, plums and damsons and of course, black berries.
My favourite thing to do with my ‘forages’ is to make hedgerow jelly. You can use all of the fruits above and just chop them up, stalks and all (wash them first) – use more apples than anything else, about 50% crab apples or cooking apples and 50% of sloes, blackberries, haws, rosehips, rowan berries etc.
The crab apple, (Malus sylvestris) often found by the roadside is sometimes rather scabby but has a very high pectin content, (that’s the stuff that helps things set). Lots of the berries are low in pectin and so using this method will help it set well.
The reason I like to make jelly is that it’s so easy!
- You just boil up all the fruit, use 1kg of mixed berries and 1kg of crab apples.
- Then you can leave if over night to drip through a jelly bag or a piece of muslin and the next day add around 900g granulated sugar to the juice and slowly, (so you don’t burn it) bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
- Then boil rapidly, without stirring, until setting point has reached, this should take about fifteen minutes. I put a saucer in the fridge and take out a teaspoonful of the jelly, put it on the saucer and if it wrinkles when pushed with your finger it is done.
You can also do this with blackberry and apples – it is absolutely lovely! A real autumn treat.
If you would like to discover the delights of how to make jams, chutneys and jellies then come along to our Preserving Workshop – on Friday 28th October – see our website for more details.
A favourite poem: Wormwood Jam by Tim Cresswell
Before the devil pisses on berries.
Late September Blackberrying down the
scrubs – by high high helixes of razor
wire. Filling peanut butter pots
with black red fruit. Brimful. Soursharp – Inky,
Imploding sweet – squashed by over- eager
Fingers – gashing hands on brambles that could
pull the wool from sheep. Gambling on low fruit
slashed by Shepherds and Rottweilers.
The kitchen filled with blackberry. Cauldrons
Of red black boiling glop. I tried to catch
the setting point – risking burns and blisters –
my fingers forming surface crinkles through
bloodthick syrup on a frozen saucer.
Entertain in our Garden Room!
Posted by editor on Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Looking for somewhere very special to celebrate Christmas or the New Year with colleagues, family and friends?
Our Garden Room is a unique space in a beautiful garden setting, ideal for relaxed and informal social gatherings.
We cater for lunches and suppers for groups. Delicious food freshly cooked using, where possible, produce from the garden or locally sourced ingredients. The Garden Room and tables beautifully decorated with foliage and berries from the garden.
Contact us to view our Festive Menus – £28 per person to include a welcome drink. Bring your own wine to accompany the meal.
We’re taking bookings now. Do get in touch and find out more!
Our favourite Apple Chutney
Posted by editor on Friday, 9 September 2011
With thanks to Garden House friend Chris Batt for giving us his recipe for Apple Chutney – a delicious way to use up your glut of autumn fruits, and to give away as gifts for Christmas…
Ingredients:
- 2lb onions, peeled and sliced
- 1 ¾ pints vinegar
- 1lb dates or sultanas
- 4lb apples, peeled, cored and sliced
- 1tbls ground ginger
- 1tbls ground cinnamon
- 1teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1tbls salt
- 2lb sugar
Method:
- Place onions in pan with 2tbls vinegar. Cook gently until soft.
- Stone and chop, if used.
- Add the apples, dates or sultanas, the spices and half the remaining vinegar to the pan.
- Cook slowly, stirring occasionally, until soft.
- Add the salt, sugar and remaining vinegar, stir until sugar is dissolved and continue cooking until thick, stirring occasionally.
- Pour into warm, sterilized jars and seal. Makes about 5 ½ lb.
Variation:
Apple and Apricot Chutney: Use the same recipe as for Apple Chutney, but replace the dates or sultanas with 8oz dried apricots. Soak the apricots overnight in enough water to cover, and chop before adding to mixture.
My magnificent cauliflower!
Posted by editor on Tuesday, 2 August 2011
This photo was sent into us by Juley, who attended one of our Garden House practical gardening courses. We can’t claim all the glory of course (our amazing horticultural teaching skills!), but we did think it was a magnificent crop, and just goes to show what you can achieve when ‘growing your own’!
Caramel orange and poppy seed cake
Posted by editor on Sunday, 26 June 2011
Enjoy one of our favourite cake recipes – and use up your leftover poppy seeds!
Ingredients:
- 2 oranges, zested and juiced
- 30g poppy seeds
- 100ml milk
- 200g butter, at room temperature
- 175g caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 300g self-raising flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
Caramelised oranges:
- 125g caster sugar
- 2 oranges, sliced
Icing:
- 100g caster sugar
Method:
- To make the caramelised oranges, put the caster sugar in a frying pan in an even layer and heat until it starts to melt and turns a golden colour.
- Tip the pan from side to side to keep the caramel as even as you can.
- Once it reaches a dark gold, carefully add half the orange juice from the cake oranges (it will splutter so stand back).
- Keep on the heat, stirring so that any lumps melt back into the caramel.
- Add the orange slices and heat gently for about 5 minutes until they soften a little.
- Lift out and drain, keep the caramel and orange slices for later.
- Heat the oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3.
- Stir the poppy seeds and milk in a bowl. Beat the butter, orange zest and sugar with an electric mixer until light and creamy.
- Gradually beat in the eggs.
- Sift in the flour and baking powder and add the poppy seed and milk mixture.
- Stir, then spoon half into a loaf tin lined with baking parchment.
- Add a layer of caramelised orange slices and cover with the rest of the mixture.
- Bake for 55-60 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.
While the cake is cooking, make the icing:
- Add the sugar to the remaining orange juice and stir.
- Add to the caramel but don’t try to dissolve the sugar.
Pour the icing over the hot cake while it is in the tin, lay the rest of the orange slices down the centre and leave to cool.
Remove from the tin when cold. Enjoy!